


The one with a Fake Marriage

by Aegir



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Comedy, Fake Marriage, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 09:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14233989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegir/pseuds/Aegir
Summary: Steve and Bucky decide to get married in order to annoy Donald Trump.  It works out exactly as you would expect.





	The one with a Fake Marriage

“I‘ve a strong mind to convert to Islam.”  It’s said on an impulse, but as soon as the words are out of Steve’s mouth they become something he’s seriously considering.

“Bit … drastic,” Sam says.

“Well, drastic’s the right thing.  Everything is drastic.  There’s an orange bigot who gets his advice from neo-Nazis in the White House.  I can’t just sit here, and ignore it.”

“You mean you are ignoring it apart from multiple twitter rants, your own social media blog and an interview track record that has got you banned from Fox News,” Natasha comments drily.

“There are still people who think I support him.  That bastard himself thinks I support him.  He was tweeting about upholding the values of Captain America in another badly spelled rant just last week.  I need something huge.  Something that will make so many headlines, nobody will ever think I’m in his gang again.”

“You could move to Mexico,” Bucky suggests, looking up from the tablet on which he is surfing TV Tropes. 

“Let’s all move to Mexico,” Clint adds.

“Tempting,” Steve agrees, “but I’m Captain America, and while I know I’m about to be stupidly cheesy here, I shouldn’t run from bullies.  I need to take a stand here.”

“Converting to Islam, though? Come on, Steve,” Sam says.  “A show of support is one thing, but does it really seem right to lie about what you believe?  Do you think Muslims would want you going to a mosque under false pretences?”

“Damn,” Steve says.  “You’re right.  I can’t do that.  But there must be something.”

“How about getting gay married?” Clint suggests.

A slow smile spreads across Steve’s face. “You know what?  That’s a great idea.  They’ll probably burn me in effigy.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend,” Sam says. “Do you?”

“No, but this won’t be pretending to believe something I don’t.”

“No, you’ll be pretending to be something you aren’t.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been doing that since I first put tights on.  Captain America has always been about sending a message.  This will show I don’t stand for bigotry.”

“One problem,” said Nat.  “It takes two to tango, Steve.  Who are you going to get to marry you?”

“Not it!” Sam says instantly. “If I publicly marry Captain America only people who get off on adultery will want to date me.”

“I’m taken,” Clint says, “And I’m not going to try excusing bigamy to Laura.”

That clearly leaves one option.

“Bucky! Will you marry me?”

“You wanna get gay married to a guy Fox News already thinks should be shot for treason?” Bucky says drily. “Got to hand it to you, Steve, that should really ruin your traditional values image.”

“Yes!  It’s perfect. Will you do it?”

“OK,” Bucky says.

“Just like that, OK?” says Sam.

“Sure.  It’ll be worth it to watch the bigots frothing at the mouth.”

“And people say romance is dead,” Clint comments.

~

Of course it’s not that simple.

“So if you’re going public,” Nat begins.

“Yeah, going public’s the point.”

“Well, you’ll have to make it convincing.  Both of you,” Nat added, looking at Bucky.  She’d cornered them both in the gym, where they’d been sparring, Bucky with a boxing glove on his metal hand. Bucky simply shrugs. 

“So what’s convincing look like?  We have to kiss in public?”

“Yep,” Nat says cheerfully.  “Folk will expect a kiss.  More than one in fact.  And a peck on the cheek won’t cut it.  You’ll have to practice kissing, guys.”

She’s right.

Kissing Bucky is a bit weird at first.  Like kissing Natasha on that escalator, or the time Steve’s class acted out scenes from A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, and he had to kiss Sally Ann Jones, who’d kept getting a fit of the giggles.  Still, once they’ve done it a few times it feels quite natural, and even Natasha is satisfied.  They don’t do tongues.

The other body language takes a bit more work.  Steve never was what people now call touchy-feely, and Bucky is still pretty twitchy, even if he’s somewhat better with Steve than most.

“Your every move is going to be analysed online,” Pepper warns them, as she sets up the press conference.  “Some will see only what they want to anyway, but if you try to look like a normal couple that will help.”

“Normal?”  Bucky says.  “We’re nearly two hundred years old between us, both jacked up on weird science, I’ve got a metal arm and a swiss-cheesed brain, and Steve takes a trash can lid to bed.”

“I don’t!”  Steve says.  OK, he does take his shield into the bedroom, but not into bed. 

Eventually they manage enough physical ease in public to satisfy a committee consisting of Pepper, Nat and Sam (Clint is there too, but he’s not being helpful).  Then they have to work out a history.  Steve’s war romance with Peggy became part of the Captain America legend long ago, and he has no intention of coming up with any story that might undermine that.  It’s stupid in some ways, there was so much more to Peggy’s life than their short time together, and sometimes he gets angry with people who seem to think Captain America was the only part of her life that mattered.  Still, he’s not going to do or say anything that might lead people to call Peggy a ‘beard’.

So they come up with a script about falling in love with your best friend.   Steve rejects a line about exploring new feelings in a new century as horribly cheesy, even though he suspects he may end up using it at some point. Captain America tends to default to cheesy.  Instead he improvises one about shared life experiences, which is actually sort of true.

~

“That was convincing,” Bucky says, the two of them slumped companionably on the couch in Bucky’s quarters, after Steve has given an interview explaining how, in the interviewer’s phrase, he ‘came to a wider understanding of his sexuality’.  Steve had talked about life model studies at art class back in the past, and given a carefully edited account of an affair with a man after he woke up in a new century.

“That’s because it was true,” Steve says, and wishes that he didn’t feel nervous. He doesn’t really think admitting to sex with a dude will be the thing that ends their friendship, not really, but…  “His name was Dale. Is Dale.  He helped me sort out a lot of paperwork, when I was struggling with being 90 years old in the 21st century.”  Steve had been lonely, and angry, and the affair had gone a little way to fill the emptiness.  “Nothing serious, but a good time was had.  He moved to California after we took down SHIELD.”

“So, you’re bi?” Bucky says, sounding more curious than anything.

“I guess?”   Steve says.

“Well, I guess that’s two of us.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, you remember the times when money was tight I used to say I’d won something on a horse?  There were well-heeled guys in New York who’d pay to get screwed.  Some of them weren’t fussy.  Some liked a man with muscles and rough hands.”

“Rough trade,” Steve says automatically.  He knows the stories.

“Yeah, well, we, the guys who did the screwing, we used to reckon we weren’t queer.  Because we were doing it for the money, and we were the ones inserting the tab in the slot. But it was real easy to get off on, and the guys on the receiving end seemed to be having such a good time I had some hot fantasies. After seventy years as a murder puppet a sexuality panic would be a bit dumb, so.  Pretty sure I’m bi.”

“So why did you lie about where the money came from?  Well, I know why you lied to your Ma, but why did you lie to me?”

“Because you had dumb ideas, Rogers.  You’d probably have thought I was martyring myself.”

Steve gets a Congratulations card from Dale some time later. It seems only fair to send a wedding invite.

“You picked a good one there,” Bucky says.  “He could have sold the story and he didn’t.”

~

Then it’s time to go public.

It’s always a slight shock to Steve when Bucky adopts his PR face, not because he finds it shocking another person has one, but because it’s so close to the Bucky who went to dance halls back in Brooklyn.  Sometimes Steve wonders if that Bucky hadn’t been part mask as well. 

Anyway Bucky wows the news outlets (most of them) with wide-eyed and completely untruthful sincerity.  The right wing has fits, and Steve sits up until all hours laughing his head off at the denunciations.  The only downside is that the President seems to have missed the whole story as he is in a Twitter row with a basketball player, although the basketball player seems to be more than holding his own, so perhaps it’s not really a downside.

A somewhat later arriving downside is that, due to publicity being the point, Steve can’t really turn down Tony Stark wanting to stage the wedding.  On television.   

He does manage to veto getting married in the Captain America uniform at least.  Pepper arranges tasteful blue suits and a plain gold band for both of them.  Sam is Steve’s best man and Nat is Bucky’s best woman.  (‘We are moving away from prescribed gender roles’, Bucky says. On air.)  They get through the service without either of them collapsing in giggles, survive Tony hiring a full chorus to sing ‘Star-spangled man with a plan’ at the reception and then spend a ‘honeymoon’ at Stark’s recently rebuilt Malibu house marathoning Star Trek and fielding prank calls from their team mates.

Back at Avengers’ headquarters nothing much changes.  They’ve always had adjoining rooms, and a habit of leaving their own things strewn around the others’ quarters, so there’s no need to worry over much about keeping up appearances for junior members of the support staff who aren’t in on the con. Steve finds that some of the more right-wing politicians are now taking a decidedly different line towards him at public events, and takes that as a win.

The marriage convinces Nat to lay off trying to set Steve up with other people for a bit, but around the time Stark starts making extravagant plans for the first anniversary party she starts up again.

“I’m half of a poster couple,” Steve tells her, “I can’t get caught in adultery.”  And he doesn’t want to.  He’s long ago accepted he’ll never have a ‘normal’ life, and while it’s nice to think the perfect partner might still be out there, he’d far rather spend his free time hanging out with Bucky than going through the motions of dating some stranger.  Even after everything he and Bucky just fit together, more than ever in fact and Steve has a hard time even imagining wanting to swop out his company for someone else’s.

“Steve, you can’t really spend your whole life living an act.  How long do you expect it to go on for?  How long do you plan on keeping Bucky tied to it?  Have you thought he might like a chance at a real relationship sometime?”

Steve hadn’t, but now Nat has raised the idea he can’t get it out of his head.

“Nah,”, Bucky says. “Don’t worry about me.”

“But don’t you want to find someone?” Steve persists.

“I want a lot of stuff, Steve.  World peace.  A date with Greta Garbo.  Doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”

“But if you weren’t stuck with the act…” 

“Nothing to do with that.  I did try.  I miss sex.  But either people are turned off by the metal arm, or they’re way too turned on, which turns me off.”

“There must be someone who wouldn’t care.  I wouldn’t.”

“Well, maybe not, but you’re not a normal person, and we’re not dating.”

“No, just married,” Steve says it as a joke, but he can see the idea strike Bucky at the same moment it strikes him.

“Buck.  You know the thing they say these days, ‘friends with benefits’.”

“I’ve heard that,” Bucky says.  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Well, if we both like dudes, and we’re neither of us getting any…” Steve shrugs. 

“Could be weird,” Bucky says. 

“Well, if it is, we’ll just stop.”

It is weird at first, all their kissing so far has been for cameras, and there’s a mechanical quality that doesn’t stop, and isn’t at all arousing.  Eventually Bucky pulls back.

“How about we go work out.” Before Steve can protest he was giving up too easily, Bucky adds, “I know you get hard-ons working out, so do I.  Might help.”

They spar, sloppily.  Steve lets his mind run more on the movement of Bucky’s body than on the fight.  Because it’s not that he’s never noticed before that Bucky is gorgeous, he just hasn’t dwelt on it, because Bucky’s his friend.  Not concentrating, he ends up on his back, with Bucky pressing down on him… and this method of getting a hard-on has definitely worked.  He only hesitates a second before pulling Bucky down, and yeah, this was a good way of breaking the awkwardness.

~

Turns out sex between supersoldiers is absolutely fantastic.  “Why didn’t we do this earlier?” Bucky says breathlessly during a break in a marathon session.

“Because we’re stupid?” Steve says.  He can’t think of another reason.

Two bedrooms stays useful, as they use one bed for sex and one for sleeping.  Steve had thought he might mind sharing a bed on a regular basis, but he doesn’t mind with Bucky, in fact it’s quite comforting when waking up from a nightmare, especially the one about Bucky falling from a train.

Weirdly none of the others seem to have worked out they are having sex.  Well, Nat might have, she probably wouldn’t say, and Wanda almost certainly has, but most of the others would either make non-stop jokes or sincerely tell them what a good thing it is. It ends up becoming a bit of a game seeing how long they can go before their team mates work it out.

Bucky gets an extended mission in outer space, which he’s quietly thrilled about in a way that makes Steve smile, because it’s good to know something of the Brooklyn boy’s love of space and exploration is still there.    He’s not nearly so thrilled about how long Bucky is gone.  Their rooms feel horribly empty, there’s nobody to unwind with by sharing stupid jokes or watching bad movies.  Well, half the team do stupid jokes, and Sam will watch bad movies with him, but it’s not the same.  Crawling into an empty bed after a rough mission starts to get near painful.  Steve can feel his temper growing shorter, though he tries to stay patient with the team it often just results in stiffness.  Messages from Bucky are rare, and though he seems fine Steve worries a bit about the team up with Nebula.  He likes her, and she’s capable of taking out most things that might try to be a threat; what’s more Bucky gets on really well with Nebula, their arm wrestling contests go on for hours… and actually that’s what’s bothering Steve.  Nebula isn’t going to care either way about Bucky’s metal arm, and while it would be ridiculous to worry about friends with benefits, he does worry they might rush into something that wouldn’t work over too many perceived similarities. 

“He’s a big boy, Steve,” Sam says.  “Stop being a worrywart.”  Steve doesn’t, but he does shut up about it.

Bucky comes back with some refinements to his arm, and the news that Nebula has hooked up with Thor’s Valkyrie friend (who still won’t tell anyone her name, which either has some profound significance or is just trolling everyone) and the two of them are taking a break on a holiday planet.  Steve and Bucky barely leave their own rooms for three days.

A couple of months later the Avengers end up facing something Thor claims is a dragon and Tony insists can’t be.  A bit of Steve is thrilled because A DRAGON.  Unfortunately it comes complete with fire breathing, and Steve gets a bit too close to a blast while pushing Clint out the way.  He wakes up in hospital with no hair or eyebrows and, oh yeah, rather a lot of pain.

“You’ve overslept again, Rogers,” Bucky looks terrible.  Several people will later tell Steve he hadn’t slept while Steve was unconscious. “Pepper sent a fruit basket, but Thor knocked it over.  I salvaged a couple of oranges.”  His voice isn’t as steady as he’s trying to make it, but his smile is beautiful.  Steve starts to feel better at once.

After Steve is discharged from hospital Bucky sticks to Steve like a burr for a few days.  Not that Steve complains.  Almost dying is getting old.

~

It would be hard to say what feels different about this particular Pride invitation. There have been so many interviews, but something about this request, about standing up with Bucky in front of a crowd of people, about lying to them and claiming to be some sort of great romance, claiming to be able to represent and speak for them… it seems wrong.

“Are you kidding?”  Bucky says, when Steve tries to explain this.

“Well, I know it’s been a lie from the start, but-“

“Steve,” Bucky says.  “We have sex.  Great sex.  We sleep in the same bed.  We get mopey when we’re separated.  We panic when the other one gets hurt.”

“I’m so thick,” Steve says, after a blank moment.  “We’re married, aren’t we?  We’re totally married.”

Everyone tells him later it was a great speech.


End file.
